It is common today to provide for the automated acceptance of currency in transactions. For example, transit busses in the United States and Canada are normally equipped with a farebox to collect fares from riders and securely store the coins, tokens, and bills used to pay these fares. Fareboxes are either non-registering or registering.
A non-registering farebox is typically a locked cashbox with an inspection area where the operator can view the monies inserted by a patron to determine if a proper amount has been tendered. After verification by the operator, a "dump" lever is actuated by the operator and the payment is dropped to a cashbox below. These non-registering fareboxes do not count monies, i.e., individual notes and coins and their denominations, accepted.
Currently the registering farebox is preferred in the United States and Canada. A registering farebox is generally an electromechanical device which measures coins and bills by physical size, keeps a record of monies accepted, deposits the accepted monies in a cashbox, and allows the operator to record other limited information using a simple keypad.
Prior art fareboxes make a determination of the value of coins by measuring the coin diameter. Therefore, these fareboxes are susceptible to erroneous determinations when presented objects of similar diameter, such as washers and slugs.
Prior art fareboxes make a determination of the value of notes by making an assumption that all documents inserted into a note acceptor of the farebox which are of a certain length are a particular value bank note, i.e., a one dollar note. However, this assumption is flawed as notes having a same length may be of a different denomination. Moreover, the item, although being of the correct length, may not be legal tender at all.
In order to compensate for the above described deficiencies, these fareboxes display the coins and notes to the operator, such as through the window of an escrow area, for verification that valid coins and notes have been accepted. However, with the advent of color copiers and inexpensive desktop publishing systems, it is very simple to generate a counterfeit note sufficient to fool an operator when presented for verification in the escrow area of these prior art fareboxes. Similarly, as it is generally a number of coins that are tendered and these coins are presented in an escrow area for viewing loosely, i.e., coins may be positioned in such a way as to obscure other coins, it is very difficult for the operator to verify the coins. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that there is typically a rush of patrons wishing to tender a fare, such as at a busy bus stop, and, accordingly, the operator is not afforded sufficient time to properly verify the monies tendered. Therefore, in addition to requiring a large amount of time and attention from an operator, verification of the accepted monies by these individuals is not very accurate.
After the coins and notes are accepted by the registering farebox and visually verified by the operator, they are dumped into a cashbox. These cashboxes consist of heavy metal containers with separate compartments for coins and notes. Generally the compartments are of equal size and receive the coins and notes loosely. Accordingly, as notes are accepted, they are deposited in the cavity loosely to collect randomly at the bottom of the cavity. As such, the collected notes may curl, fold, and rest in different orientations to require a much larger area for storage than if the notes were neatly stacked in a same orientation.
These cashboxes may include separation of notes and coins. However, even if notes and coins are kept within separate areas in the cashbox, these cashboxes are commonly emptied into a common revenue container immediately after they are removed from the bus. These common revenue containers also commonly have separate areas for notes and coins. Preparing notes for counting requires sorting by hand in order to stack and face the notes.
Hand sorting is further exasperated by the fact that the notes are stored loose in the cashbox. As such, the notes are neither stacked nor faced, i.e., having the front of each bill facing the same direction, as generally required by automated note sorting and counting apparatus. Accordingly, in addition to sorting notes from coins, hand sorting must also stack and face the notes.
The ratio of collected coins to notes may vary depending on circumstances, such as a particular route a bus travels or a change in fares where the standard fare is changed from a fraction of a dollar to a whole dollar amount. However, typical prior art cashboxes do not provide adjustability of the coin and note storage areas. Instead, these storage areas are simply designed to be large enough to accommodate the largest amount of coins likely as well as the largest amount of notes likely. However, this brute force design technique, although simple to implement, does not provide an efficient use of a limited amount of space.
A further disadvantage of the typical prior art cashbox is in accounting for receipts of individual busses. For example, because of the aforementioned problems in sorting the monies collected in prior art cashboxes, the receipts of multiple cashboxes are generally intermingled in a common revenue container. Likewise, due to the large size of the cashboxes, in order to accommodate the loosely stored notes, retaining the collected monies within the cashboxes for counting is not desirable, as the handling and space required would be prohibitive. However, this does not provide any means by which the receipts of a particular cashbox may be accounted for.
Furthermore, data generated by the prior art fareboxes is not accurate enough to balance the monies collected. On average, the reported revenue from registering fareboxes is 4% below the counted revenue. The discrepancy ranges as high as 10% for some transit systems. As a result, the audit trail created by the registering fareboxes is not accurate enough to be useful in indicating whether internal theft is occurring or not.
Moreover, because the cash from all cashboxes is dumped together, the count for each bus is not obtained separately. Consequently, fareboxes that are inaccurately counting revenue cannot be identified and, therefore, remain unrepaired. Of even more consequence, employees stealing from the collection system cannot be easily identified and stopped.
The information provided by the registering fareboxes is very limited. Initially it is noted that the accuracy of the amount of monies collected is almost entirely reliant on the verification of these monies by the operator through the glass of the farebox escrow area. Additionally, the information regarding the transactions which an operator may provide is very limited. For example, the number of events or types of fares selectable by the operator is very limited. Expanding the information possible to be entered by the operator is restricted in these systems as the keypad only includes a very limited number of keys for input, the farebox does not provide much information display for the operator, i.e., for prompting et cetera, and the operator's time is otherwise occupied with the task of verifying the accepted payments.
Therefore a need exists in the art for a fare collection and accountability system which provides reliable verification of monies collected, including both coins and notes, without the need for operator intervention.
A still further need exists in the art for the fare collection and accountability system to interact with patrons and operators to efficiently conduct transactions, such as through rapid acceptance and verification of monies, meaningful messaging to the patron and operator including displaying a tally of verified monies, allowing the operator robust information input, and compact storage of accepted notes and coins.
A yet further need exists in the art for the fare collection and accountability system providing accurate reconciliation of the monies collected including robust storage of information with respect to transactions, identification of a cashbox in which the monies are stored, and reliable information regarding the amount of monies collected on a unit by unit basis.
A need also exists in the art for the fare collection and accountability system to conveniently present the stored coins and notes separately for accounting purposes.
A still further need exists in the art for the storage of notes by the fare collection and accountability system to be in a tight stack having a common orientation and common facing to allow for automated handling of collected notes.
A further need exists in the art for the fare collection and accountability system to bring real time data from collection systems together with actual coin and note count information for automatic generation of accurate and timely reports.